The Distinction of Fruit Complete

The distinction of the united function of realized wisdom: because the most utterly pure dharma-realm is realized as a single, undifferentiated flavor, the omniscient wisdom that depends upon it functions identically in every single buddha — each buddha's own capacity is exactly equal to every other buddha's capacity, with no buddha's wisdom exceeding or falling short of any other's.

The distinction of the purification of obstruction: both the afflictive obstruction and the cognitive obstruction are permanently and completely severed without exception — a purification already examined at length across this treatise's account of the culminating path, here confirmed as the bodhisattva's own final attainment.

The distinction of united activity: whatever function any single buddha carries out in guiding and transforming any single sentient being is, in every case, carried out through the combined power of every buddha at once — no buddha's activity toward any being is ever isolated from every other buddha's own activity, since the very same undifferentiated dharma-realm underlying the previous distinction likewise underlies every buddha's actual working in the world.

The distinction of skillfully manifesting complete awakening and entry into final nirvāṇa: throughout every world-system in the ten directions, in accordance with what each situation calls for, and continuing all the way to the very end of future time, a buddha repeatedly manifests the attainment of complete awakening and the entry into final nirvāṇa, precisely in order to bring every being still to be trained to full maturity and genuine liberation. Buddhahood, on this account, is never a single, one-time historical event but a continuously repeated skillful display, adapted to whatever beings, in whatever world, at whatever time, still need to witness it.

The distinction of the five kinds of rescue names five specific dangers a buddha rescues beings from, each matched to a specific means of rescue. Rescue from calamity: as when the Tathāgata, entering a city or town, causes the blind to see and the deaf to hear. Rescue from wrong method: causing beings to attain correct mundane view, freed from every form of evil and mistaken view. Rescue from the lower destinies: causing beings to enter the path of seeing, thereby passing beyond every lower destiny entirely. Rescue from self-view: causing beings to realize the fruit of arhatship, thereby permanently escaping all three realms. And rescue from a lesser vehicle: causing bodhisattvas themselves not to settle for delight in a lesser vehicle, holding them instead to the full scope of the Mahāyāna path. These five kinds of rescue, taken together, span the entire range of a buddha's own saving activity — from the most immediate and physical of dangers to the most subtle attachment still capable of diverting a bodhisattva from the path's own final destination.